Green Party Says TfL Should Generate London's Sustainable Power

One of the Green Party's London Assembly Members thinks Transport for London should be granted a license to generate electricity from renewable sources, power it could use to run the tube network and make a nice little profit by selling green power to consumers and businesses on the side.

The proposal comes from a paper put together by a team working with Jenny Jones [PDF], which says: "Once established, it could use income generated to reduce energy bills through funding energy efficiency investment programmes, supporting the uptake of decentralised generation or providing specialist advice to help London households struggling to pay bills, or those on pre-payment meters."

The company, dubbed the London Electric Company for the purposes of this bit of forward thinking, would also purchase electricity from green suppliers to resell and use, helping the mayor's office meet some of its loftier eco ambitions.

Jones caps her concept with: "By setting up an Energy Supply Company the Mayor of London will have a far greater ability to deliver on his climate change target. He can also offer Londoners an attractive publicly owned alternative to the ‘Big 6' energy companies. Bristol and Nottingham's municipal energy companies will be supplying homes as well as businesses, and so should London." [London.gov [PDF] via Business Green]